Last year, Dixit had confirmed that the UP Police had sent a sample of meat for testing, but refused to give a time frame for confirming if the sample was of beef.

“It is a sensitive issue and we have instructions not to react to

the subject,” Dixit had said in October 2015. He had admitted that teams were being formed to test the flesh. “The outcome would be conveyed to the appropriate authority and that is all we can reveal,” he had said.

Dixit, the then joint director, was due to retire on October 31, 2015.

Mukul Anand, public relations officer at the veterinary college, said till 2001, the Mathura Veterinary College was under Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Kanpur. In 2001, the college became part of Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyay Pashu Chikitsalaya Vishwavidhalaya and Gau Anusandhan Sansthan, Mathura.

The institute specialises in research on cow and holds a unique status in Uttar Pradesh.

The forensic lab, however, continues to be under the state government’s animal husbandry directorate with the joint director heading it as in-charge.